


"Deep Fried Boulevard"

by stillscape



Category: Arrested Development, Parks and Recreation
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 20:43:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leslie hires a magician from California for the Harvest Festival. As it turns out, she's made a huge mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Deep Fried Boulevard"

Michael Bluth was skeptical when his brother GOB said he'd taken a job at a small rural festival in Indiana, and even more skeptical when it turned out GOB wanted to drive there in the stair car.

"You know, we could probably rent a car and save a lot on gas money," pointed out George Michael. But his common sense fell on deaf ears, and the Bluth family set out in the stair car. Since the entire family couldn't fit in the stair car, they also went in Lucille's car. And in Oscar's camper. And in a convertible that Maeby had "borrowed" from the movie studio where she was secretly working as a producer.

Indiana was somehow not what the Bluths had been expecting. In fact, the only person who liked Pawnee at first was Lindsay, who'd found a group of Native Americans protesting outside the festival grounds, and immediately joined them.

***

"Dad."

"Not now, son. I have to help your uncle set up his act."

"Dad, we had some hop-ons."

Michael waved off George Michael. "You know everyone will get off when they realize we're not going anywhere else."

"Dad, I don't think raccoons are going to care that we're not going anywhere else."

***

Lucille strode up to the woman with the news crew, who was the only person with any fashion sense in this podunk wasteland. She looked vaguely familiar, but Lucille didn't bother to expend any effort in recalling where she might have seen the woman before.

"Vodka," she stated. Whether she was asking where she could find some or demanding that it be brought to her was irrelevant. Either this woman would figure out what she meant, or Buster would.

Joan Callamezzo looked at Lucille, looked at one of her minions, and snapped her fingers.

***  
Michael was having a hard time concentrating on getting the magic act set up.

"So much undeveloped land," he mused, letting his gaze travel over the cornfields. Sure, he was a California boy, born and bred, but the Midwest was really the heart of the country. It would have been a good place to have raised George Michael.

Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe they could still move here. Start over.

"Excuse me," said a female voice, snapping him out of his revelry. "Hi. I'm Leslie Knope. I'm in charge here. I need your vendor paperwork."

"Oh, right, right. Of course. I've got that right here. Nope, no I don't, it's in the car. I'll get it. Out of my car."

"You can bring it to the tent," she said, pointing.

"Right. I'll get it. Right away." As soon as the woman was gone, he spun around for his brother. "GOB? GOB, are--"

But GOB was nowhere to be seen.

***

"I am intrigued by your description of this food product," said the man with the full, lustrous head of hair and the impressive mustache. "Deep-frying is the only useful cooking technique other than grilling. It is also the only acceptable preparation for vegetables."

"So true, so true," said George Sr. "Now, is there a power outlet I could use? You have so much corn around here, it seems like a waste not to set up a stand for this thing."

***

"GOB, aren't you a little bit alarmed that the festival director looks almost exactly like your wife?"

GOB laughed. "Wife? I don't have a wife."

"You do have a wife."

"No, I don't. I--wait, do I have a wife?" He shook his head as though clearing water from his ears. "I'm pretty sure I'd know if I was married, Michael."

***

"I would be delighted!" cried Tobias, shaking Ken Hotate's hand. He skipped off to look for his family. "Maeby? Lindsay? This gentleman with the casino has hired us! We're getting the band back together!"

***

GOB wasn't sure what he had to do to impress this woman.

"Nothing," he said to himself. "I shouldn't have to do anything. Look at her. Look at me. Look at her next to me."

Unfortunately, he’d also said it out loud.

"Stop talking," ordered Donna, who had stopped being impressed by sleight-of-hand tricks somewhere around kindergarten.

GOB felt a feeling he’d felt often, but not usually around women. The feeling was shame, but—having never acknowledged it before—he couldn’t put a word to it.

“I’ve made a huge mistake,” he muttered.

He slunk out of the tent, hopped on his Segway, and rolled back over to the stage where he would soon perform his greatest illusion that didn’t involve a boat.

***

George Michael felt he had found a kindred spirit.

"It's just--I love my dad, and I know he loves me, but sometimes I don't feel like we really connect, you know?"

"Oh, boy. It must have been so hard for you, growing up without a mother," said the man, extending his large, squishy arm for a sympathetic hug. "Come here. You know what, why don't you come over to our house for dinner tonight? Gayle is making pot roast, and then we're going to have a Gergich family board game night."

"Sounds--okay," agreed George Michael, who had just started to think about trying to relax into the hug when Jerry farted.

It kind of ruined the moment.

***

Maeby missed Steve Holt. But she'd found a new friend.

Meanwhile, Greg Pikitis--who despite claims to the contrary, had never left the state of Indiana--thought California girls were pretty hot.

The Harvest Festival would never be the same.

***

"Basket weaving!" shrieked Buster.

But he'd forgotten you needed two hands to weave a basket. After he'd torn through most of the stockpile of willow reeds, he was ejected from that particular tent.

Dejected, he hung his head to his chest and wandered along Deep Fried Boulevard.

His mood improved immensely when he came to Sue's Salads...and its attached juice bar.

***

Everyone gathered to survey the damage.

"So let me get this straight," said Ben, who had just received a frantic phone call from Ann insisting that he couldn't possibly be the curse, and she thought she knew who was, and get back here right away. Which he did. "Leslie said it was the news crews who blew out the generator, but it was really part of a magic trick?"

"Not a trick. An illusion."

Ben threw a quizzical look at the magician, wondering who this guy was, and whether he would let Ben have a turn on the Segway. He'd always wanted to try one.

"It wasn't the magic--the illusion," said the normal-looking guy. "It was the Cornballer. It short-circuted."

"So the curse of the festival is...deep-frying?" Chris would have a field day with that.

"I did think it was Joan initially," Leslie said, "but we found her passed out behind her van." She pointed at the van. Next to it, an older woman in a heavy brocade suit raised a martini glass, and her eyebrows. "We still haven't found Li'l Sebastian, though."

It was the first time Ben had ever heard her genuinely worried, and he mentally punched himself for leaving.

"Mother! Mother, he dragged me out of the corn maze. Can I keep him?"

"Li'l Sebastian!" Leslie shrieked, and she rushed forward to hug the pony. Small horse. Whatever it was.

The man with the hook hand shrieked too, and ran backwards.

***

After she’d made sure Li’l Sebastian was safely tucked in for the night, Leslie set out to find the most beautiful nurse in the world, and make sure she didn’t need any more help treating grease burn victims. She found Ann sitting on a hay bale outside the first aid tent, deep in conversation with the normal-looking guy. He didn’t appear to have any grease burns. He did, Leslie noticed, have nice hair. Almost as nice as Ben’s.

“Let’s go get a drink,” Leslie suggested. After today, they all needed drinks. Preferably at Ann’s house, so they could all just crash there and not have to drive home.

Ann didn’t respond.

“Ann. Hey, Ann. Ann, drinks. Let’s go get a drink.”

“I’m not old enough for alcohol,” said a small voice. “And alcohol is corrupt. Except Communion wine.”

Leslie looked to her left and saw a nondescript pile of beige fabric with a face.

“Ann, let’s go.”

“Ann?” said Michael.

“I’m Ann,” said Ann. “And you are?”

“Michael Bluth.”

“Mr. Bluth, have you seen George Michael?” asked the beige fabric.

“George Michael? No, I haven’t, I—who are you?”

“Ann.”

“Wait,” said the real Ann. “Leslie, you didn’t tell me you’d hired George Michael for the festival.”

“Who?”

“His girlfriend,” said the fabric.

“No,” said Leslie, her head buzzing, “that’s Ann.”

“Her?”

“I’m also Ann.”

Ann, the real Ann, stood up from the hay bale. “Michael, it was nice to meet you. Leslie, yes. Drinks.”

As they walked away, the inferior Ann insisted “I’m your son’s girlfriend.”

“I think I’d know if my son had a girlfriend,” said Michael.

***

What had really happened was this.

Tonya, the proprietor of Sue's Salads, had become alarmed by Buster's behavior, and his lack of money, after his third fresh-squeezed carrot juice. He had become distressed, and--while rapidly departing from the salad stand--had accidentally snagged a bag of carrots on his hook.

As he tore through the festival grounds, he was frightened by an off-timed firework exploding by his ear. This had been set off by Maeby and Greg Pikitis. Driven temporarily mad by the sound, Buster lost consciousness but continued to run.

Maeby and Greg's firework had landed in the vicinity of George and Ron Swanson--and, unfortunately, the Cornballer. Never the most reliable of electrical appliances, the sparks from the firework ignited the Cornballer, which sent a number of flaming balls of deep-fried corn batter at GOB's curtains. These had caught fire, and soon, GOB's whole stage was in flames. The flames had, in turn, spread to the generator.

Meanwhile, the bag of carrots stuck to Buster's hook had proven useful when Buster finally came back to his senses, and realized he was lost in the middle of the corn maze. Oh, there wasn't any particular use for carrots in a corn maze. But Buster, despite years of cartography training, couldn't find his way out. Li'l Sebastian, however, could. And since he was a very smart miniature horse with a degree from Notre Dame, he took pity on the nice man with the carrots, and led him to safety.

That was what Buster thought, anyway.

But really, Li'l Sebastian had just wanted the carrots.

***

"Shouldn't have done the Cornballer," said George, shaking his head slowly. "You know what would have made us a lot of money at this festival?"

Michael pressed a hand to his temple. "Banana stand?"

"Don't get smart," said his father. "There's always money in the banana stand, Michael."

***


End file.
